In the related art, in a manufacturing process of a semiconductor device, a plasma processing method has been used which performs an etching processing or a film forming processing by activating plasma on a substrate (for example, a semiconductor wafer) placed in a vacuum processing chamber.
In such a plasma processing apparatus, it is known that a temperature control mechanism is provided in a placing table on which a substrate is placed to heat or cool the placing table, and a heat conduction gas (so-called, backside gas), which is a heat carrier such as helium (He) gas, is supplied between a substrate disposing surface of the placing table and a rear surface of the substrate, thereby accelerating a heat exchange between the placing table and the substrate.
In this plasma processing apparatus, a technology is known which individually controls flow rates of gases having different heat conductivity, for example, helium (He) gas and argon (Ar) gas, as the backside gas and supplies the gases (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-327275).
A technology is known which intermittently adjusts the flow rate of the heat conduction gas to control the pressure of the heat conduction gas (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-232098).